


The Love for Glory and Gore

by theleagueofthirteen



Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Crack Relationships, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25195318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleagueofthirteen/pseuds/theleagueofthirteen
Summary: In the future where Rhian and Japeth rule their world of gladiators and grandeur, Sophie and Hester are slaves to their masters; forever fighting a war which cannot be won.Since Sophie's Golden Age of killing for sport, she's taken a step back to reflect. However, when she's called to her fate and Hester's in the ring, her old ways fall right in line with chaos.crack ship//enemies to lovers
Relationships: Agatha/Hester (The School for Good and Evil), Agatha/Tedros (The School for Good and Evil), Aric/Japeth (The School for Good and Evil), Beatrix/Reena (The School for Good and Evil), Hester/Sophie (The School for Good and Evil), Hort/Ravan (The School for Good and Evil), Kei/Rhian (The School for Good and Evil)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 20





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dismaltemperament](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dismaltemperament/gifts).



> Hi! This was rushed, please don't call me out on plotholes or inaccurate character portrayals. I know it's terrible. I was stressing out the whole time, and did I tell you that I've never written fight scenes?? or romance??? like, AT ALL? So lower your expectations to rock bottom as if you've just read "Two Foxes and a Roach"... please. Okay, with that in mind, read away! 
> 
> uh, more notes:  
> yes I used Upper Ring and Lower Ring as if they're in Ba Sing Se.

  
  


On the kinetic sandbar that bridged her favorite fluorescent ocean, Sophie settled into her personalized tanning bed and tried to enjoy herself. The waves flourished with digitized rainbows and the sunny shore spun into sable threads. All at the crystallization of her thoughts. 

It was a birthday gift from Rhian: an oasis telepathically tailored to her, surrounded by a tranquil beach (as realistic as he could get) and away from the metropolitan clatter of the Upper and Lower Ring. The gesture was nice, it attended to her every whim, and yet Sophie had a monstrous voracity ripping her apart. For what, she didn’t want to admit. Her hunger was terrible, and the very concept defied all order. 

Out of habit, Sophie configured her engagement ring into a thin nano blade and began to sharpen her acrylics. 

Think pretty! Think soft! 

The blade sang against her nails in higher and higher pitch. 

You were an angel once. You were dainty and beautiful. Rhian liked you. He's shown you patience and compassion, and how do you reciprocate? You hardened and polished and whittled yourself down. Now he only loves you because he has to, and soon that will fall away too. 

How could you ever let yourself get this bad? 

Maybe you shouldn’t have taken that job. 

Her phone rang shrilly beside her. 

In shock, Sophie’s hand slipped. 

A line of dark red tore open the seam in her skin. 

That’s your punishment, she thought bitterly. 

With ichor dripping down her wrist, she answered the call. 

It was Aggie. Her loveliest best friend in the whole world. 

From her phone screen a 3-D projection leapt and twitched to life. 

A pixelated Agatha stood before Sophie. Her welding mask shot up to reveal her sweaty smile. The volcanic hellscape of her workshop glitched behind Agatha’s gangly frame. 

Suddenly Hort, covered in soot, barreled forward. “Sophie! I’m your biggest fan!”

“We know,” Agatha exhaled. 

Ravan snatched his arm and pulled him halfway out of frame into an ugly kiss. 

“Can you stand still and do some work for one minute, Hort!” 

Agatha rolled her eyes. 

“Happy birthday, beanhead” she said. 

“I thought you forgot,” Sophie replied, knowing full well that Agatha wouldn’t dare. “But thank you.”

“I miss you, kind of.”

“How are you?” asked Sophie. “Being Rhian’s new Hephaestus? Must be paradise”

“It’s not as magical when you’re not engaged to him,” Agatha said. “Truthfully, though, I do love it. I’m glad you pushed me into applying.”

“And how’s Teddy?”

“He’s doing errands in Neverland now, and he’s always complaining about how I should pixie dust Excalibur. As if he knows better. But by the way, do you have any requests? I’ll forge anything you like.”

“No, of course not,” Sophie sputtered. “I couldn’t!”

Agatha cocked her head. “Are you sure? Rhian gave me the green light.”

“You’re lying,” said Sophie. 

“Seriously. You and Hester, tonight. Didn’t Rhian tell you?”

Sophie goggled. “No?”

They were rivals, if you could call an endless back-and-forth of maiming each other a rivalry. 

“Must’ve been a surprise, sorry,” Agatha murmured to herself. 

Sophie began to panic. She looked into her compact mirror, aghast, and found her forehead creasing from stress. Absentmindedly she rubbed the “R” imprint on her inner forearm.

“But… I can’t go back.” 

Agatha controlled a laugh into a cough. “I’m sure you can pull some strings.”

“I can’t go back.”

Sophie hung up. 

Immediately she dialed Rhian. He noticed the agitation in her expression, and closed his six other holograph work screens in his otherwise pristine, sterile office. 

“What is it, love?”

“How could you not tell me?” Sophie nearly shrieked. 

He laughed, twirling a pen. “Agatha ruined it for you, huh?”

“Thank god she did! Imagine the embarrassment of everyone knowing but me,” ranted Sophie. “You wouldn’t have done this to stupid love getaway Kei. And unlike you and him, I don’t get to watch from your glorified bleachers.”

“It’s going to be different, I promise. It’s Hester, you remember her, she’s a prodigy. A champion. You’ve been paired up with her a few times.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

Rhian’s typical Prince Charming beam dropped slightly. “So I’m the bad guy. I thought you’d be more excited.”

“You thought wrong.” 

“Japeth already made the arrangements,” Rhian said. “You know I can’t back down from a challenge. My reputation will be tarnished.”

That edacity in her grew into a wildfire. 

“Then it’s not enough to love me anymore. You’re going to pay me in cash,” Sophie said, clicking off the call. Her face drained of all emotion, only her hands trembled in rage. 

The same hands that had been used to torture. 

Sophie looked towards the cruel, monstrous city. They would pay too. 

———

  
  
  


“Do we have to be your guinea pigs?” Dot complained as she was pinned to the training room wall, Hester’s throwing knives piercing her collar and sleeves. 

“We support you, but not this much,” said Anadil who was similarly restrained, except she was lying on a punching bag. 

Hester nonchalantly hurled a boomerang knife, cutting through her friends’ clothes and effectively releasing them. 

They dusted off. In a blip of mind-reading, Anadil and Dot smirked at each other and made their decision. 

“Yeah, well-”

Hester turned around only to be pummelled to the ground from the Anadil-Dot barricade. 

In response, she kangaroo-kicked them both off her stomach and sent the pair flying. 

At least 15 feet, Hester counted proudly. 

“Stop doing that!” grunted Anadil. 

“Sorry, but today’s the real thing. Japeth would destroy me if I lost to his brother’s prize.” Hester said. She pulled her two covenmates to their feet. 

“She’s Sophie. You’re not scared?” Anadil asked with a twinge of doubt. 

“No,” Hester said. “Can’t afford to be.”

“You can afford us lunch, though, right?” Dot said, blissfully unaware. “Least you could do.”

So Hester treated them to the fancy rooftop restaurant on the tallest skyscraper in Camelot. It was the least socially acceptable area for the soldier, and Hester took advantage of her Japeth-granted privileges. 

The trio silently cut the line and marched to their designated table. It was already lavished with their usual off-menu delicacies, a legion of waiters lined up to take additional orders. Aristocratic class snobs goggled from a distance. 

“Hester, you have no idea how grateful I am that you work for Japeth now,” Dot said as she slurped her carpaccio through a boba straw. 

“Yeah, I thought we’d be at school forever.” Anadil said.

“Sometimes I’d take school over this,” Hester grumbled. “No Japeth and no Aric there to threaten me.”

“Hester, Japeth can’t really do anything to you, right?” said Dot. 

There was a long, grim pause. 

Dot urged her. “Right?”

“Sophie will be sure to do more damage than him.” 

“She’s out of practice, and you’ve been drilling for weeks,” asserted Anadil. “You actually have a shot this time.”

“Thanks for the confidence boost.”

Hester pushed away memories of being beaten, burned, and broken by Sophie. The enchanting sprite with sadistic eyes. 

Sophie wouldn’t be seducing her much longer. 

“You don’t need to convince me. I know I’ll win,” Hester declared. “And I’ll win for you guys.” 

Two shadows stretched upon the cream white tablecloth. Japeth, armored in his scims, and Aric, in black leather. They sneered down identically. Kings of the demagogues and the dungeons. 

“You should worry less about who you’re winning for and worry more about winning,” Japeth said to Hester. He then narrowed his eyes at Anadil and Dot, who visibly stiffened. “Heaven knows they’re not worth keeping alive.” 

Aric lunged over and grappled Hester’s neck. She thrashed for air. 

“Please.” she managed to choke. Tears welled up. 

In acknowledgement, he punctured his claw into her Adam’s apple where the J for Japeth was engraved. 

“Hm, we should add an A.” Aric snarled. 

“On her forehead, I think.” Japeth said. “For her fans to see.”

“Don’t.” said Dot. She blew a toothpick into Aric’s eyeball. 

Anadil added. “Or else.” Three of her rats bit into him, and Aric reluctantly let go. 

Hester gasped. Her coven rushed to protect her. 

By the time she regained air, her perpetrators had disappeared. 

———

  
  


5 minutes till the curtain. 

She checked her makeup in the dome ring light, knowing that people would see her from every angle, and not one fleck of her complexion could go without airbrushing. 

Thank god Sophie could call beauticians like they were ambulances. Yes, it was 100% an emergency, and no, she was not exaggerating. 

This is for Rhian. This is for petty politics. Nothing else. 

She slipped into an airy tunic, her lace-like chainmail, and a pair of sleek black boots. They’d been gifted to her by her first admirer, and they reminded her of Agatha’s clumps, only infinitely better. Sophie hadn’t had the chance to appreciate them since. 

It was so silly that she’d flounce around in her pink chiffon skirts and glass heels all those centuries ago. What was the use of succumbing to imposter syndrome when everyone already knew what she was capable of? 

A knock sounded at the door of her studio. 

“Are you ready, Miss?”

“Yes, in a second.” 

“I wish you luck.”

From up above, she could hear the sirens bellowing to signal the start.

Sophie walked to the glass elevator and steadied her trembling, letting herself be carried up and up, from darkness into the shifty lights. 

She rose from her grave into another level of the inferno. The arena. 

The crowds rattled the iron caging of the grand stadium, but Sophie was searching for one person. In the booth towering above the rest, her prince lounged in his throne. Kei hovered at his side. 

For a moment Rhian caught her eye and blew a kiss. Sophie let it fall, and switched her attention to her opponent. 

Of all the battles she’d entertained with Hester, her memory blanked about her blind spots and faults. Had she taken that long of a break?

She’d have to improvise new strategies. 

Amongst the arsenal of weapons strapped to Hester’s chest, Sophie calculated that blades would be her first choice. She’d need to be nimble and fast.

The girl's muscular build was tragically concealed in full armor (inscribed with Japeth’s emblem, poor thing). Her stance mimicked that of a bull. In other words, impenetrable in close combat. 

But everyone had a catch. 

As a test run, Sophie stalked toward her. 

A sheen of determination washed over Hester. She reached for a sword with her left hand. Her dominant side.

“Glad to see you back in the fight,” Hester said. 

“Wish I could say the same.”

Sophie broke into a sprint now, spike-headed serpents rippling through her sleeves and launching from the cuffs. They dove for her jugular. Hester easily deflected them away. 

Seeing as Hester was just going to slice and dice like an anthropomorphic kitchen appliance, she took a soaring flip right over her head and landed upon the railing of the ring. 

Infuriated at her bluff, Hester speared her knives through the soles of Sophie’s boots. 

Rendering them absolutely ruined. 

Sophie gaped in disbelief. 

“How could you?” she screeched. 

At her banshee call, a swarm of ravens swept her up into the air. Poised in her pirouette, she rode the swell like a surfer. 

They circled around Hester, shiny black wings and talons blurring together. Sophie was imperceptible. 

She’d camouflaged, that much was evident, and so Hester’s eyes darted for the wrinkle in the veil. 

You’re close, but not quite there, Sophie judged from afar. 

She knew better than to use computer-generated garbage. 

Winners attack. 

She pushed a raven a slight too far into the eye of the storm. Take the bait and we’ll see if your prestige precedes you. 

Hester saw the imperfection and slashed. 

Sophie grinned.

In its place, a bomb exploded in Hester’s face. 

“Take her out,” Sophie commanded. 

All at once, the plague of ravens stirred up into a stinging explosion.

Like a conductor of pyromania she played her an orchestra of bombshells and grenades. Smoke, gas, and flame violated Hester’s lungs while incendiary agony belted cruel symphonies upon her hide. 

Sophie stepped away from her arson to allow a brief feeling of glory. 

Would she get a scar? Be burnt to a crisp? Have that smirk melted right off?

No. 

In the scorching cloud a figure stumbled upright. Her armor had been shed. 

A cinder balanced on her curved lip. 

A slew of knives whizzed past her. A couple inches were shaved off.    
Her hair! It would be uneven…

Sophie corrected her wavering line of logic to find Hester’s motive. 

She couldn’t have missed. Not by accident.

Sophie felt cold steel latch around her wrists and yank backwards, making her knees buckle and her torso flatten to the ground. She was completely vulnerable. 

They weren’t knives. They were shackles. 

Hester descended on Sophie’s chained, exposed form. Her fingers flickered over her skin, deliberate and slow. 

Why hadn’t that cowardly woman destroyed her yet?

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sophie hissed at her captor. 

“Nothing,” said Hester. “What do you think I’m doing?”

The lock clicked in place. 

With that, Hester upended the trap she’d set, dangling Sophie beside her, and thrust her trophy of a beast toward the sky. 

The moderator on the broadcast nodded to indicate victory. 

Spectators drummed in the stands. 

“No! No!” Sophie cried out. 

A blaze of fury seared through her mind. 

She couldn’t lose. Not like this. 

Blood boiling, muscles tensing, she let out a scream that rocked the heavens. Inside of her hand a long, lethal whip of lightning swished. 

One swipe of her bonds and she was free. 

There Sophie stood, a god against her creation. 

“It’s not your fault,” Sophie pitied. “You could’ve never conquered me. I always win. The other always dies.”

She looked into black, bottomless eyes. “But I’ll let you get on with a stalemate.”

Sophie cocked her fist back and delivered her sentence. The lightning bolt shot clean through Hester’s left arm. 

Next thing she knew, Hester had fallen, and Kei ushered Sophie away. 

Her feet dragged on the pavement while Rhian cradled her head. 

Weakness and fatigue swam in her veins, but her hunger was satiated. 

That was all that mattered. 

  
  


———

  
  


Hester woke up to the bleak mildew lamps of the infirmary, and her best friend Anadil. 

“Hey,” she said feebly. 

“Jesus, Hester,” said Anadil. “Are you alright?”

She recoiled at her stump of an arm. “Does it  _ look _ like I’m alright?” 

“You were unconscious for days, and I was…”

“Yeah, I know, Ani,” Hester said. “It’ll grow back- just have to commission a blacksmith.”

Right on time, Dot burst into the hospital room carrying a box. “You got a gift! From Agatha!”

“Bring it.”

Hester was so grateful that they were on speaking terms. 

She cut open the cardboard, then realized Anadil and Dot were still there. 

“I need a moment.”

They took the hint. 

What lay was a glorious bionic arm in sparkling silver. 

Etched on it was an outline of a fearsome demon. 

Though the craftsmanship was unmistakably Agatha’s, the note attached definitely wasn’t. The letters were neat and loopy, and in lavender ink. Hester knew her goth ex-girlfriend wouldn’t touch lavender. 

It read:

To make reparations for my unlawful behavior, I have paid for this prosthetic (designed by Agatha Graves) as well as your medical procedures. I have also deposited my own monetary award from the munera into your accounts. There is no need to reimburse me; consider it common courtesy. I wish you health and happiness. 

Sincerely, Sophie.

Then, in a different font:

P.S. If it pleases, you have been invited to the Victors’ Banquet tomorrow night. 

Are you kidding? 

Did those arrogant, heartless degenerates genuinely think she was stupid enough to attend such a sham?

She threw the paper aside. 

  
  


———

Sophie wasn’t expecting her. She’d sent the obligatory arm replacement as an offering of amity. But the invite had been Rhian’s call. 

The Banquet wasn’t any ordinary gathering; it was where the elite negotiated, sold, and traded gladiators like property. This was where people got their skin in the game, where shaky alliances and greedy gambles were thrown on the table, and where puppetmasters of the coliseum had their fun. Everything was fair play. 

Wary of his brother’s temperament, Rhian was often in charge of damage control whenever Sophie was the instigator. Parties were the prettiest way to make peace. 

Therefore, it wasn’t really Hester he wanted. It was Japeth and Aric, whose crimes didn’t show any sign of slowing. Rhian would do anything in his ability to foil them. 

And for what? Sophie lamented. For power. For control. 

It was absurd, really, that he’d attempt to gain even more. Peering around the guest hall in her newest mansion, this kind of aesthetic beauty could last Sophie’s eyes for a lifetime. Opal chandeliers lynched from vaulted cathedral ceilings, obsidian columns held up a starry skylight, jeweled tapestries of ancient battles snaked down the balustrades on the escalators. 

The room had been molded a mockery of the afterlife. Of both Valhalla and Hell. 

Yet beneath the sickening shimmer, Rhian was exclusively concerned with persuading Japeth and Aric to dissolve their Reformatory into a prison for delinquents. Every part of the venture was highly illegal, from the kidnapping of kids to the callous child-on-child slaughter. 

They were rearing innocents up to kill, or to be a lesson learned for the rest of them. 

Terrific for recruits, though. And coincidentally, convicts. 

Most importantly, the Reformatory wasn’t in Sophie’s interests. She thought it a waste. Some were meant to be loving and just. Like Aggie, Teddy, Rhian. To take that away was a shame. 

Which brought her back to Hester. 

Sophie sighed at the Reformatory graduate in front of her. They sat rigidly on the balcony, right where their masters had left them. How does one reconcile with a nemesis she knew nothing about?

“Does it fit?” she asked. She pointed at the hunk of metal jutting out from the socket. 

“Clearly,” Hester snapped, wobbling it around. 

Sophie, being an amazing host, gave her some champagne. “So… what do you do besides fighting?”

“Train,” said her guest. “Don’t you?”

“I’m a housewife,” Sophie replied, indignant. 

Hester scoffed. “Or an upgraded sugar baby.” 

Sophie changed the subject. “Um, do you know anyone here? If not, I can introduce you to-”

“Don’t need introducing. I can’t be bought.” Hester shrugged. 

“Right.” 

Internally groaning, Sophie tried to find a way out. 

“Would you like anything to eat? I can get a servant.” 

“I’m not hungry.”

Now Hester was being obstinate. 

“I apologized,” Sophie said, huffing. “Why are you acting like we can’t be friends?”

“Because we can’t, dimwit,” stated her not-friend. “I’m on Japeth’s side, and you’re with Rhian.”

“They’re brothers.”

“And enemies.”

“Does it matter?”

“You gashed my arm off!” Hester yelled. She awkwardly spun it like a windmill, still not used to the feeling. 

“It’s part of the game!” 

“I won’t even be a player! Not after today. I look like a cripple.”

“No, you don’t,” Sophie said, then paused to sneak a glance and reevaluate if she was right. Yes, she was. “You look good.”

Hester muttered. “Thought you would be better at lying.”

“What?”

“You’re attached to Rhian. He’s always around, and you know,” She gestured toward the twins arguing vehemently in a glass room across from them. “He’s a criminal.”

“He’s my fiance, so you should watch yourself.”

“He owns you.” Hester said. She clenched her grasp around the parapet so hard her knuckles whitened against the marble. “Like Japeth owns me.”

“We’re dating, it’s not the same”

Hester grabbed Sophie’s wrist and lifted it. 

“See?” With her fingertip she traced the R that branded her as Rhian’s possession. “You have an explanation for that?”

Hester showed her own mark. A jagged J carved into her throat. 

Sophie faltered. “It was to celebrate our 1 month anniversary”

“You call it romance, I call it subjugation. I was going to get mine covered up tonight at a tattoo shop downtown.”

Sophie considered how Rhian would react if she followed suit. Was she disloyal to erase their symbol of love? 

Hester was so determined in her inner rebellion. So direct and confident. She didn’t need anyone else’s permission. 

For once, Sophie envied another. But what was stopping her from stealing a kiss of independence for herself?

“Can I come with you?” 

Hester blinked. “They’re old friends from the Lower Ring. You’re not too good for that?” 

“Rhian would say I am, but I can handle it,” Sophie said. “In return, I’ll… I’ll make sure that you won’t be targeted. Your status is a real hint.” 

“I don’t make deals with people like you.”

Sophie touched her demon arm. “Please.”

Hester couldn’t answer. 

In a flash of pale muscle and fangs Aric struck her against the wall. Bruises were already blooming. 

“You’re going to betray us for Sophie,” he spit. “I know it. No other reason she’d have mercy. No other reason she’d speak a word to you.”

His head turned unnaturally, his scowl deepened at the princess in offense.

“These are baseless claims,” defended Sophie. “We haven’t done anything. Why don’t you run to Japeth if you’re so insecure?”

To her horror, Japeth was behind her. He chuckled. 

“They’re traitors,” Aric insisted to him. “I’ll punish them for treason.”

Japeth waved a hand and removed his sociopath pet from a struggling Hester. “Not now. A corpse won’t sell.”

Aric’s jaw set. “She deserves to die regardless.” He surged towards Hester once more. 

Quick as a viper, Sophie stepped between them. 

Scims peeled off Japeth and took aim, much too late. 

Instantly the gossamer silk of her dress disintegrated into a glittering forcefield of missiles. Phantom phoenix wings erupted from her spine.

“Try touching her again and your existence ends here.” She tossed her golden hair back and bared pearly teeth. 

Carefully Aric inched closer, glaring at Hester. “You wouldn’t.”

He opened his palms, a torrent of violet infecting the shield like a leech, eating away at the sparks. 

Sophie looked mildly amused at most. “Aric, it’s like you’ve never dealt with me before.”

Firebolts turned to ice, reversing its parasitic web to diamond permafrost. 

Until he was a skeletal silhouette in a crystal iceberg. 

Japeth moved to free him. 

Sophie didn’t care. 

She took Hester’s hand and fled. 

Off the balcony, onto an escalator, out of the window, and down from the roof. 

They landed in the rosebushes and kept running. 

“That was… that was-” Hester couldn’t summon the words or the energy. 

“I’ve always wanted an excuse to attack him,” laughed Sophie breathlessly. “Now can we go to the tattoo shop?”

“God, fine. I’ll tolerate it.”

  
  


———

  
  
  


Beatrix’s and Reena’s parlor was wildly different than the glamour Hester had just escaped from. 

The atmosphere was gritty and grimy, filled with the drunken shuffling on concrete overhead and wasp-like humming of needles. It reminded her of home. Except for the girl who held her hand right now, trying not to breathe in musty air. 

Beatrix eyed Sophie. “How do you know Hester?” 

“I..uh,” Sophie said. “I’m-”

“The one who made me Captain Hook.” Hester finished dryly. 

“Really? She’s the one?” Reena marveled. “We don’t see doll types in the arena anymore, and especially not as a date.”

“We’re not dating,” the pair said at the same time. 

Briskly Reena sat Sophie down at her station, and the blonde pulled Hester to hers. 

“What would you like?” Beatrix asked. She laid out an array of popular templates. 

Having no idea, Hester peeked at Sophie’s design. She’d decided on a blood-red ruby teardrop. 

“I can set in real gems as a tattoo?” 

“You’ll have to break skin to wear it,” Beatrix warned. 

Hester stroked the metal of her arm.

“Can you do plating?” she said. 

The needle began to buzz. She shuddered at the sound. 

“Of course,” Beatrix said. “Now relax.”

She’d done this a million times over, ink all over her limbs and back. Not like she was going to stop wincing. 

Hester shut her eyes and let the familiar songs on the radio play. 

The same ones that she used to blast down the highways after training with her insufferable classmates. 

Who knew that after all those years, she’d be at the top? 

She pondered if her less lucky peers were failed or feasted on. Or how the newbies were holding up. 

But to be honest, her recollection was fading. The brainwashing and gaslighting had taken a toll, flushed anew by memories of joy. Her mind rewritten. 

She was in this new phase now. 

“Done.” Beatrix announced. She gave one last pinch, and left with Reena to get the next customer. 

Hester promptly reached for her own throat. The silver was cool to the touch. 

Looking at the merciless, graceful Sophie, Hester caught her staring. 

“What? What is it?”

Sophie blushed. “Your tattoos are nice.”

“Nice?” Hester repeated derisively. “You’re getting tired. Let’s leave and I’ll pay.”

  
  


Outside of the shop the quiet lingered. 

The next day, all Hester would do was wake up and charge into war with Sophie. 

One avoided flogging from Aric wouldn’t change much. Neither would one delusionally-motivated tattoo trip with a stranger. 

“I called for a cab-”

“I don’t want to go back to Rhian.” Sophie confessed. “I don’t feel comfortable there.”

“What are you asking me to do?” 

“I don’t know, I could stay at your place?” Hope glimmered all over her. 

Hester intended to crush it. 

“No, obviously not,” she said, nearly insulted. “You don’t get to win back forgiveness like it’s another game.” 

Sophie looked like she’d been slapped. “But I-”

The cab arrived, and Hester opened the door for her. 

“Go home, Sophie. Thanks for everything.” 

———

  
  


In the morning Rhian found her in a tattered nightgown watching TV. 

Usually she would’ve primped and preened in preparation to see him, to force him to fall for her over and over. 

Now he saw her for the first time bare-faced with a hangover. 

It was Hester who made her do it. Not her specifically. Sophie simply didn’t want to dress up anymore, if she was just going to be rejected no matter what. 

“You left the party early,” Rhian said, unsure of how to approach this new woman. He draped his military coat over her as if to cover the poverty. “Why didn’t you ask for my approval first?”

“I figured you wouldn’t have any issues, if you’re occupied with business-” 

“I heard you assaulted Aric,” Rhian circled around her. “You humiliated me.”

“Hester would have been hurt otherwise.” 

“Is it so hard to let her?” Rhian scathed. “You infringed on their territory. Not to mention Aric is bent on a conspiracy that you two might be...”

“What?” Sophie mocked back. “Fraternizing?”

“Whatever the case is, he’s at the forge persuading them to sever client connections with Hester.”

Agatha worked at the forge. 

Wasn’t hard to figure out they were close. 

Wasn’t hard to use her as a lure. 

Sophie stormed out. 

  
  
  


The maniac had been waiting for her.

Every fire was put out, every piece of armament eliminated. 

Sophie walked into a cavernous trap pulsating with poisonous purple magic, designed to void every form of witchcraft. She felt it in the first step inside. It was going to be a match solely based on muscle. 

“How pathetic. Disarming my enchantments just so you can pretend it’s a fair fight,” shouted Sophie into pitch-black.

A shadow slithered up and gripped her ankles. Aric swung her body like a bat, her torso smashing into rock. Again and again and again. She slumped to the floor. 

Ow. God. Sophie shook back to her senses.

“Is that all you got?” she taunted. 

Aric advanced forward. He threw a punch and she caught it; she twisted him around into a cartwheel. He landed on a broken knee. 

She heard the cracks of deformed, dislocated joints. His heavy breathing. The nauseating pop of manipulating his bones back to position. 

Out of the darkness he came hurtling back. His claws anchored into her sides. Contorting his body upside down, Aric kicked off the walls and slammed his contender down with him. Sophie’s face scraped into the gravel. 

Get up. He’s going to bash your nose in. 

Get. Up. 

She couldn’t. 

She was going to die. 

In the corner of her spotty vision a sandy-haired man in navy blue appeared. 

Didn't Jesus have more melanin? Was there damage-free hair bleach up there?

Sophie barely saw Jesus give Aric a strong uppercut to the jaw, who tumbled to the ground. 

The vibrant violet of his magic-suppressors faded. 

“Are you okay?” Jesus said to her, picking her up. “I’m sorry I took so long, I rushed Agatha home.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie replied, lip quivering. Agatha can’t be dead. She can’t be. 

“Agatha’s safe.”

“Okay. Alright. That’s all I needed to know,” Sophie tried to pull her emotions together. Half relief that she was good enough for heaven and half suspicion it was a trick. “You can take me up now.”

Jesus’ brows knitted together in confusion. “Take you up where?” 

Sophie squinted. Abruptly Jesus morphed into Tedros Pendragon, and she straightened. 

“Oh,” she said dumbly. “I had a concussion.”

That wasn’t how concussions worked, but it’s not like Tedros knew. 

Aric stirred. 

As long as he was alive, the people Sophie cared about would be endangered. 

Better for him to be extinct. 

“Girl-sympathizer scum,” Aric seethed at Tedros. 

Sophie ground her teeth. “Save your miserable last words for me,”

She walked up to him and whispered in his ear. “Your executioner.”

Sophie reached into every fiber and sinew of his being. He was deteriorating by the second, she recognized. And it was still not fast enough. 

Slits in his skin flowered like roses on his leaden body, blood gushing like a tempest. Rivers of electricity rolled through his veins and swelled them up to the surface until they burst. 

He lit up like a Christmas tree. 

Sophie smiled at what she’d wrought. Her promise to her new ally had been fulfilled.

  
  


“Hey. Hey,” interrupted Tedros. “You want to come back to Earth? 

She broke out of her spell. Aric was dead. 

“Are you okay?” said Tedros again. 

Sophie whirled, already electrified. “Yes, why?!” 

“You… you weren’t here. You were somewhere else, in your head. You were killing him and you liked it.” 

“I was angry. Sometimes you do irrational things when you’re angry,” Sophie argued. 

Unconsciously her engagement ring mutated into a nano blade. 

“Stop,” Tedros said. He flung it away. The ring clattered among the stones and slate. “I’ll take care of Aric, and you go to Rhian. Nothing happened here. Drink some tea and take a nap. We’ll reconvene later.”

Sophie wrinkled her nose. “You’re so gracious now. Drive me home, why don’t you.”

  
  
  
  


The first thing she did when she got home was hug Rhian. She was sobbing and she was a mess in his arms, the second time he’s had the displeasure of seeing her unravel that day. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I love you, never leave me.”

That’s all Sophie could say. 

He pressed for more and she relapsed into tears. 

Make him cross once, then bawl for hours. Rhian was pulling away from her bit by bit. This was his true colors. 

“Don’t worry, love. I overreacted. I didn’t mean it.” he said to her. 

Sophie felt his detachment and disgust, and her dramatics got needier. 

“Do you promise? Promise you won’t be mad at me? Promise you’ll always love me?”

“I promise,” Rhian begrudged. He kissed her on the forehead. 

A phone rang. Japeth jumped from the screen. A deadly instability cast over him. 

“I’m in the middle of something,” Rhian said. No reply. 

Japeth held up a shining ring. Sophie’s heart dropped. 

His voice was hoarse as he spoke. “Rhian. Tell me you didn’t do it.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Aric.”

“I haven’t seen him.” Rhian dismissed. 

Japeth kept his cool, barely. “He’s been murdered. I know your ring was there, you have a hundred rings like it. A hundred rings for a hundred girls.”

Sophie began to retreat, realizing. Not only was she a prisoner and a toy, she wasn’t the last. 

“Then question the girls.”

“No girl has the strength. He’s dead because of you.” 

“Don’t accuse me. I’m your brother. And be reasonable, Aric had no shortage of antagonists. Anyone could be a suspect. I feel for your loss, but-”

“YOU KNOW NOTHING OF LOSS.” Japeth roared. 

“Instead I will make you know,” he continued hotly. “I challenge Sophie to a duel on Hester’s behalf. A fight to the death. Tomorrow. Fair’s fair, and your true love will die for it.”

“And if Hester is defeated?” Rhian said, raising an eyebrow. 

A leer spread on Japeth’s face. “Then you will get what you wanted, brother. The Reformatory will become a prison, and the only one incarcerated will be you.”

The screen shut off. 

Rhian turned to plead with Sophie. 

But the room was empty. 

———

“Why are you here?” Hester asked Sophie. “And how do you know my address?

They were in Hester’s secret studio, miles away from the Japeth-mandated luxury townhouse. The smallest area on the block. 

“Agatha told me,” Sophie said. “And, um. Do you know…?”

“That one of us is going to stiff the other like a pig?” Hester said. “I know. Let’s not talk of it.”

Sophie shuffled side to side. “Can I stay here for a bit?”

They were sworn adversaries. Not even friends. 

Hester conceded. “You can stay.”

Cringe wormed up her insides. Was it weird to accept someone in that way? 

“Could I really?” 

Hester could see Sophie readying for rejection like the last time. She softened. “Yeah. Really.”

“Uh, you live here? All the time?” Sophie started to say. Disappointment was carefully distorted into mild appreciation. 

“Yeah,” Hester said. “Now shut up about how poor I am.”

“I- I didn’t say anything!”

“You’re thinking about it.”

Spitefully Sophie put on a dazzling simper; she accepted her new roommate’s band tee as a pajama set (it drooped to her knees), and drank her cheap beers. 

They sat on the bed wordlessly.

“If you don’t mind…” Sophie said.

“Yes, make the handicap one sleep on the sofa” Hester groused. 

“I meant I don’t mind if we shared.” 

“I do mind,” said Hester. “Out of respect for Rhian-”

“You act like he earns respect. You’re more worthy of it.” Sophie leaned in and kissed her lightly on the cheek, to which she froze. 

What just happened. What?

“Sophie-”

“Shhh…”

Swiftly the princess put her head on her knight’s shoulder, fell asleep, and in a moment, the knight was gone too. 

All the while wondering what would come of them. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. The Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S THE MOMENT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!
> 
> Hi, sorry for the late chapter! Blame it on, uh, summer.  
> 1\. I had to change the definition of chimera for the story.  
> 2\. Ngl didn't know how to write Kei, just like bear with it. If it turns out inaccurate replace that shit with something else LMAO  
> 3\. Yeah there's Keian but like, unhealthy, because plot. But I do lowkey ship Keian in a real way.  
> 4\. Clearly I disassociate while writing romance ahhh. I really... yeah.  
> ANYWAYS ILY THANKS FOR READING! :')

Sophie might’ve thought it was her wedding day.  
Except for her face, she’d been mummified in acicular gemstone prisms; splitting light and color as she floated in the mirror like an optical illusion. Rings, bangles, and bracelets straitjacketed her acrobatic physique, already on her way to be placed in a casket.

It had been fitted for Tedros by his modeling agency, but Agatha had swiped the blueprint on the last day. She’d equipped her with every piece of artillery the mines could fashion.

Exactly the attire she wanted for the engagement party, and tartly declined by Rhian who said she was dressed too much like his liege.  
“We are equals,” he had affirmed. “Don’t you want the world to know that?”  
They were anything but.

Her phone hammered with messages from Rhian, growing relentless.  
Then the last one: ‘Open the door.’  
She obeyed.

His disposition was so calm, his kiss so noble on her lips.  
How was he able to slide the uneasiness off so effortlessly? Like he had the universe in his hands. Sophie forgot all about the wickedness she intended to hate.  
“How are you feeling, love?” Rhian said.  
“What do you think,” said Sophie. “You said you’d never leave me. You promised me.”  
“The promise continues to hold.”  
Sophie remembered the criminal who had started it all.  
“Have you found him? You can make Japeth change his mind.”  
Rhian tucked a strand behind her ear. She shivered. “At this stage the search will hardly be necessary. We shouldn’t dwell on it. If you truly love me, you will know the course to take.”  
Why did he invest the answer to such a horrific predicament in her? A stupid, primadonna extra with a streak of viciousness. Even the crown on her head was a fake.  
Rhian would understand. Rhian couldn’t let her have a say in his own destruction.  
“But I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I don’t know!”  
Rhian seized her by the nape of her neck and sunk his gaze into hers.  
“Do you love me?”  
Sophie surrendered. “Yes.”  
“Well,” he said. “There will be no hesitation.”  
He led her out of the dressing room into the elevator.  
“I wish you luck, Sophie. You will need it.”

Again she was taken up into the blinding brilliance.  
There were no blaring alarms. No crowds. A translucent, computerized bubble separated Rhian and Japeth’s viewing booth from the stillness of the ring.  
The show was for them.

“Back for a rematch?” said Hester, much more self-assured than her.  
“It was never much of one in the first place,” Sophie responded.  
Suddenly, Hester dropped to the ground.  
“Do you feel that?” she said. “Like an earthquake.”  
Sophie shook her head.

With a ghastly creak, the titanium floor fractured beneath Hester’s feet.  
Slowly it opened up, the sawtoothed crack lurching and groaning into a deep, deep ravine.  
Hester scrambled to the side.

What emerged was a creature that weakened Sophie to her core.  
It seemed to crawl from a grotesque middling of history books and some perverted experiment; a sabertooth the size of an elephant, coarsed over in spiny alligator leather and endowed with horns and tusks. Its cat-like mechanics were made up of mangled metal, its paws enormous slabs of iron. All around this wretched freak Sophie could taste the mist of magic sewing its parts together.  
A toxic, malnourishing, bestial magic. Something subhuman.

The creature sniffed at Hester, and lifted a claw as if to skewer her.  
She held her ground. “Sophie, get back. I remember him, from school.”  
Its mouth stretched into a predatory grin. It was well informed of its might.  
“That,” said Sophie. “Was a student?”  
“A chimera. It was used to discipline us. Now it’s going to discipline you.”  
The chimera let out a warped cry of anguish and plowed into Sophie.  
She vaulted onto the tip of his tusk.  
“Is this thing a part of the competition?” she said as it tried to rattle her off.  
Hester dashed in front, trying to distract it.  
Using a bow, she aimed arrows into the chimera’s gnarled eyes.  
“Must be, to give you a disadvantage”  
Sophie, still standing on the see-saw of the creature’s ivory, plucked an emerald choker from her neck. It unfurled into a thick, notched emerald rod. With it she bludgeoned the tusk, its clefts fitting precisely like puzzle pieces. A single rotation of her arm and the tusk splintered to slivers. Sophie sprang to the next one and did the same.  
Strange, robotic words seeped through its howling.  
A monotone chant.  
Die.  
Die.  
Die.  
“Come on!” she said to Hester, and pulled her up on the chimera’s barbed back. In a manic frenzy it flung them from side to side. Sophie kept Hester’s balance steady.  
“Pretend we’re sparring. On three.”  
Both withdrew swords; Sophie’s modified from her tanzanite belt, Hester’s from the sheath of her forearm.  
“1. 2. 3”  
Swords clashed, their figures entangled and intertwined.  
They were nose to nose.  
“If you wanted to kiss me, you could have asked” said Hester, eyebrows furrowing.  
“You said it, not me,” Sophie said smugly. Gradually she closed the gap, inch by inch, until her lips scarcely skimmed hers.  
There was no sweet release.  
Sophie shoved the girl. Frustrated, Hester interrupted her fall with a sword, plunged into the chimera’s crooked spinal column.  
“What was that for?” she carped.  
The creature arched in pain.  
Its vertebrae disgorged from the tissue, rolling like a tide.  
“To make you chase it,” Sophie teased.  
She ran down the chimera’s back, pitched into a somersault, and lifted off midair from the flick of the tail.  
Her sash of amethyst sculpted into a grappling hook; its flukes gouging into the milky white of the barrier.  
She swayed from the rope with a gleeful laugh. “Come and get me!”

Hester, on the other hand, was attempting to harness the brute.  
She stood on the top of its head, wielding a yoke as it writhed and thrashed. In every movement a piece of the creature started to decompose.  
The very anatomy was disarranging.  
And it wasn’t Hester’s doing.  
Sophie’s awareness shifted to Japeth on his pedestal.  
His posture draped lazily in his chair. In his glove he twiddled a pair of marionette strings, trailing down to some oversized puppet. It was vaguely human, limp and waxen with scraggly hair.

Japeth splayed the reins of his ragdoll.  
Another strangled wail uttered from the beast, no longer mechanical, as if it were a mouthpiece.  
“I will survive. Sophie will die.”  
Yet it continued to decay.  
Sophie said, “Something’s wrong”  
“What?” Hester panted. Her footholds shook.  
“Think. Why is the chimera here? Why is it in our way? It’s a distraction. It must be. So get up here. A bigger enemy is coming.”  
“Tell me, then. What other enemy would they bring?”  
“It won’t be anything new. It’s what that creature will become,” Sophie said. Right on time, its skeleton caved in and collapsed.  
She hurled a lasso at Hester, reeling her in. The warrior ended up in her arms.  
“I had him,” she protested.  
“That’s the goal,” said Sophie softly. “ The faster you defeat him, the faster he will be reborn. And whether or not you pursue me, I’m their quarry. The one way to end this is to defeat its maker.”  
“You have a death wish?” Hester’s countenance darkened. “Japeth might as well be immortal.”

The chimera’s scream shattered all sense of time and space.  
Sophie’s ears rang.  
Its transformation was complete.

Aric arose from the chimera’s carcass, his brawn reinforced with that of both animal and machine.  
He was still a corpse in every way; his outer shell bleach-white, his veins glowed, his organs bulged out. But he was fueled by magic like a drug. The scent throttled the air.

He pounced on the end of Sophie’s rope and clambered up.

“Alright, alright, we have to go,” Hester admitted. She flexed her bicep and her arm transmuted into a steel androidian demon. It spread its wings and whisked the two across the safeguard. Sophie let her feet kick and dip into its coding. Glass digits detonated at her touch.  
“Since when did you have this?”  
“Since now,” boasted Hester. She directed her demon skyward. Straight to Japeth’s box.  
Sophie looked back.  
Aric was scrabbling sideways after them. Scraps of software eroded in his wake.  
She dug her heels in. “Go! Go!”  
The demon picked up speed, now at a 90 degree angle.  
With a crash they burst through the barrier.

“Your charade is over,” Hester said, brandishing her swords.  
Sophie snatched away the marionette strings and burned them to ash in her hand.  
“I refuse to be traded for Rhian’s pitiful life.”  
Japeth tilted his head. “What do you mean? The bargain’s been made.”  
Sophie stared. “I’m sorry, what?”  
Steadily Japeth’s pallid complexion warmed into Rhian’s.  
“Don’t you recognize me, love?” he said. “I knew I could trust you to choose yourself. It’s what you do.”  
“What happened to loyalty?” Sophie said.  
Rhian flipped a hand at Hester, and her mouth was magically taped shut.  
“Loyalty?” He drawled. “Your hypocrisy amazes me. When Aric was tragically murdered-”  
“Don’t feign empathy. Don’t act like you care. He was a tyrant, and he was turned that way by people like you.”  
Rhian smiled scornfully. “It was because of my empathy and my devotion that you did not become a replaceable bully like Aric. But it seems like all my other concubines, your primitive little seed of humanity has ripened. Sophie, you talk so much of others’ vices but you forget what you are. How many have suffered because of you? How many have died?”  
“How many have you bred to be weapons?” Sophie retorted.  
“Enough to know I’m doing it right.”  
Rhian regarded the rotting Aric behind her. His bright violet eyes simmered to brown, his gauntness filled out and chiseled down.  
Kei.  
It was Kei the whole time.

His expression was haunted and afraid.  
“I didn’t want to. Believe me, Sophie, I didn’t want to. It was Rhian. I couldn’t- I couldn’t not listen.”

Sophie felt sick. She held onto Hester for stability.  
“Rhian, please, please forgive me.”  
It was useless.

Her prince turned his back. “You’re usually so cute when you beg. But now you’re nothing but a disgrace. Take them to the Reformatory.”

Kei swept them both away.  
To their ruin.

———

Her consciousness dim, her vision spiraling at the edges, Sophie awakened in a gloomy prison. The cage was spherical, small, and frozen over. Upon attempting to stand, her feet slipped and she fell, her temple wiping the curvature of the cell wall.  
“Ow,” Sophie said. Her voice reverberated throughout.  
On her second, third, fourth try to stand up, she fell every time.  
“Hmph, fine, I’ll sit.”  
Sophie crouched into a ball and crossed her arms to keep warm. Though meagerly dressed in a nightrobe, trapped in a Arctician hamster wheel, and frighteningly lonely, she didn’t question it.  
It was meant to be.  
There was a reason she was put there, a sensible reason. Somebody had told her long ago, and she hadn’t noticed. She had been looking at the butterflies, tiny wisps of color in that garden.  
The floodgates of her gorgeous memory opened. The garden was lush and endless, fauna and flora fluctuating in texture and hue. She reclined on the knit blanket laid out for her, wading in the sunbath.  
Who had created this?  
Whoever they are, Sophie was happy with her gift.  
Everything was good.  
And if she could stay with those pretty butterflies forever, then she would be satisfied.

———

It had been many days since her awakening. Maybe it was weeks, Sophie could not tell. She did not starve nor become tired or dirty. Though she was cold, bored, and apathetic all the time. There was not much to react to.  
When she had finished her post-nap yoga session and her nail-sharpening routine (her ring was the only item salvaged from the outside), involuntarily she would drift off into her Eden. Not that she resisted. She loved her corner of the earth. It was so perfect, and so beautiful.

This time there was a mirror where her blanket used to be.  
She examined her face, incredulous that she looked like that.  
A lovely fairy in a lovely place.  
Without a past, a future, or a present. Her only belonging was this Eden. Much more pleasant than her coop, but it gave her no remedies. Rather, it resolved her want for them.  
Sophie fidgeted with her knife-ring, feeling discontented.

Impulsively she cut her hair, two feet of it, so that it grazed her earlobes.  
The absoluteness of the motion was foreign, barbaric, and yet induced such a euphoria that Sophie could not constrain herself. As if in a free-for-all she giddily massacred every flower and plant in sight. Her once verdant garden was a graveyard.  
She picked up the mirror. Happiness dissolved into disconcertment.  
In her reflection was an intimidatingly tall, muscular girl a distance behind her. Her left arm was a bionic replica, and she was ever so familiar.  
“New hair,” the stranger commented. “Suits you.”  
“Do I know you?” she called out. A double-check over her shoulder and there was no such girl, though the apparition in the mirror was strikingly real.  
“Yeah,” said the girl. “My name’s Hester. You’ll know me once you remember.”  
“What don’t I remember?” Sophie said.  
“Everything, looks like. We were gladiators. We were rivals. We were…” Hester paused. “Friends. You, rightfully, killed a man named Aric. We wanted to kill the people that corrupted us, and we failed.”  
“Who?”  
“Japeth and Rhian, the ones who put you here.”  
“And you?” Sophie asked. “Who put you here?”  
“Your best friend, Agatha, through a spell. She and Tedros are going to rescue you as undercover guards, and Kei’s a prisoner, he’s in on it,” Hester explained. “Point is, don’t trust anyone except us. And try to practice magic while you’re waiting, you haven’t for a month.”  
“Right,” swallowed Sophie. Her mind was spinning. She’d never used magic before. “How can I meet you?”  
“You can’t,” said Hester. “You can’t be in this garden again, not after what I’ve told you. Look around, it’s been tainted. You don’t want to look like you’re causing a mutiny when you’re not. It was a placeholder for your purification, and now that you know…. well, you’ll remember soon.”  
Sophie corrected herself. “Will I ever meet you again?”  
“I don’t know,” Her eyes curved in her misery. “But I’ll be around.”  
She disappeared away, and soon so did Sophie.

When she came to, a strange, handsome man was fussing the buttons of his jacket, perched upright and cursing to himself. Ruddy bags lined his almond eyes, his hair unkempt.  
This was the second stranger she’d seen that day (or immeasurable unit of time) who had come out of nowhere.  
“You’re not Hester,” said Sophie, startled.  
“I’m Kei,” Kei said. “You know who I am.”  
“No. Should I?”  
Kei opened his mouth to speak and seemed to think better of it. “Never mind.”  
Sophie ran a hand through her choppy pixie cut nervously.  
“Rhian evidently favored you, didn’t he,” he said to her. “Your incarceration is tolerable compared to some others’.”  
Kei crumpled into a cross-legged position. “Unlike you, I have to learn a lesson. All my memories are about him.”  
“Your memories? You have memories? Okay, no. Tell me what’s happening,” ordered Sophie.  
Kei realized. “He purified you to the bone. You don’t have anything up there.”  
“I have a garden!” said Sophie defensively.  
Hastily he told her the plan in more depth.  
“And what of my magic?”  
“You were a pyro. I don’t know if you’d have much success practicing though.”  
“Don’t doubt me!” said Sophie, and on command sparks fluttered from her tongue.  
Kei settled into a slouch. “Go ahead and try. I need to sleep.”

———  
Kei was, in fact, not sleeping. He was being drowned into his memory, against his will, and he could feel Rhian taunting him as he pulled his red thread of fate tighter.  
He was in his designated lounge, where Rhian often locked him away so he could cheat on his fiancee in privacy, while afterward Kei would be left soaked in shame. He was a childish secret, his cheap thrill behind the scenes. A plaything used for his convenience.

His room was forbidden to anyone else.  
The door was wide open. It was how he knew he’d been caught.  
“I thought you could handle being a Reformatory guard,” said Rhian. His lip curled. “As opposed to… whatever you want to call yourself.”  
He was so much more benevolent in this purified dream. It would be easier to love him if he acted this way all the time.  
“You know I didn’t want to be employed by Japeth,” said Kei.  
Rhian adjusted his lieutenant's jacket. “And you defy my decision by conspiring to give Hester reprieve?”  
“What makes you think I’m rebelling? I don’t live always in feedback to you.”  
“Don’t you?” Rhian provoked.  
The jacket was quickly disposed of.  
“I don’t exist to be loved by you.” Kei breathed. As if he was trying to get them all out.  
“Hollow words. You can do better. What do you have to say to me?”  
Kei knew this routine well. He knew the desperation, the rhythm he used to charm his lover out of anger.  
“I’m sorry. I want to make it up to you,” Kei said. Naturally he pressed his lips to Rhian’s, straddling him down to the sofa.  
Kei internally recoiled at how daring he was. Rhian had invented this, did he want him to be more forward?  
He kissed him harder.  
A hand on his chest, pushing him back.  
“Not this time,” Rhian said, sighing. “You can’t distract me.”  
“I wasn’t-” Kei objected.  
Rhian became inscrutable. “You knew what you were doing. Take your punishment.”  
That’s when he’d been hit over the head.  
Kei remembered it so heartbreakingly well.

———

As soon as he was able, Sophie asked Kei about Hester.  
What was she like, how they had met, what interests did she have.  
He seemed unsettled after his dream-memory and he smoothly latched onto an entire narrative of Hester. Sophie could tell most of it he was making up, but she was happy to hear his stories anyways.  
“Hester sounds important to you,” said Kei.  
“I don’t know why. I simply had a feeling,” Sophie said. “Should I go back to Eden and see if she’s there? She said not to-”  
“How about you secure your magic back like she asked. Think of something that makes your emotions go mad.”  
What with her brain being wholly drained, she couldn’t. She couldn’t even conjure her imagination.  
She slammed her foot down in resentment. “I’m useless, aren’t I?”  
“You’re not,” Kei said, resolute. “You’re not. Do you know why you’re purified and I’m not? It’s because you disabled his dominance and he couldn’t handle it. Rhian governs my own thoughts everyday, forcing me to feel guilty, planting fantasies of crawling back to him when my sentence is done. It’s the only option I have, and he knows it. You’re not useless. You’re just starting from scratch and you haven’t found your purpose yet.”  
Oddly, Sophie ached in subconscious understanding. More than sympathy. More than sensitivity. It was identification.  
She patted Kei to comfort him.  
A shock traveled from her body to his.  
“I didn’t mean to,” she apologized. “Were you hurt?”  
“It’s good,” he coughed. “It ought to hurt.”

A low voice shouted from outside.  
“Let’s go! Subdue the prisoner! You know how much trouble we’d be in if Hester was on the loose? To the main station!”  
It shrank to a whisper. “Agatha, they’re right here, I think.”  
Sophie scrambled to its source, ears pricked.  
Another voice, only gravelly and more feminine.  
“Shut up, Tedros,” she chastised. “You’re having way too much fun for a high security jail.”

The cell extended into a square platform.

Sophie gaped at the pair of guards, one lanky and sporting a black fringed mullet, the other the spitting image of Apollo.  
“You’re the people Hester mentioned,” Sophie deduced. “Right?”  
“Came earlier than expected,” Kei said.  
Agatha appeared on the verge of crying. “You’re safe!” she said. “You’re safe.”  
“You don’t say,” said Sophie, not knowing how to be around her so-called best friend.  
“Hester can’t hold them off too long, we have to find Reaper,” Tedros urged.  
They scurried down several tunnels that seemed to go in loops and coils. Sophie gave up on comprehending.  
Distantly she could pick up on the gunfights ensuing in some juncture of the institution.  
Hester could protect herself, couldn’t she.

———

Sophie studied her ride up and down.  
They had arrived in a military car port, cleaned out of any vehicles — except for a massive, vaguely reptilian automaton, furnished with batlike battle wings and ridges of iron scales.

“Reaper, we’re ready,” said Agatha.  
Curled into a circle like a cat, the slumbering dragon brightened up and adjusted to let its riders mount.

A ping from Tedros’ transmitter snapped her out of awe.  
“Agatha and I have to leave.”  
His tan skin paled. “Japeth is demanding every guard in this wing. He intends to obliterate her. If we’re there first, we could coordinate the team Hester wanted.”  
“I can’t operate Reaper myself!” Sophie balked. “I don’t know anything about anything.”  
Agatha bit her lip, deciding. At last she handed her friend a small flask sloshing with what looked like liquid fireflies. “I stole it from the memory cooler. I really should be monitoring you… no one should intake their entire lives in one sitting. But everything will be back to normal.”  
Hesitantly she matched Tedros in his race down the hall.  
“That’s over. Let’s go, Reaper,” Kei instructed. Dutifully and chaotically Reaper crashed through the port gate, diving into the cold-blooded blue and ascending into the clouds. They coasted soundlessly along the tradewinds for awhile until Sophie felt grounded enough to drink.

She gagged the potion down. Once it pooled in her stomach did Sophie’s perspective start to plummet.

Dizzy, she staggered into her garden.

The divine Eden she adored so much had crumbled.  
It had become a colorless wasteland, the horizon nonexistent, the flowers recessed into a desert.  
This isn’t what she wanted.  
Only thing she could feel was the saturated swamp of friction in the sky, the negatives and positives whirring.  
Thunder rumbled. Wind swirled. Anticipating.  
Lightning rained down. Storms terrorized the plain, gleaming cascades of it, fountains of her youth pouring in craggy cuts and wounding the earth.  
Memories filled her psyche, rawed and roughened and hard.  
Her father wrestling with her brothers in the heat, the incessant dinner-table talk of the martyrdom they’d grow up in; the disapproving aftermath she came home to after her first duel, the mountain of illegal fight club trophies she couldn’t explain; her joy of when Rhian had proposed to her in the last natural forest in the continent, the way her radiance withered whenever Rhian tossed her aside.

Hester, the shine in her eyes, her silent willfulness, the fluid violence of everything she was.

Where was she? Sophie needed her. Now.

Shifting from her dream state to reality, she rushed at Kei, barely making him trip.  
“Why aren’t we coming for Hester?”  
“The plans changed.”  
“What are you hiding from me?” Sophie asked again.  
Kei averted his attention to his shoes.

“You’re scared of going back,” she accused. “You’d let Hester be crucified so you can find refuge for yourself.”  
“Rhian _claims_ me, more so than you,” Kei flared. “It’s like none of my actions are my own. It’s too risky.”  
“We’re taking that risk.” Sophie grabbed Kei’s collar and dangled him midair.  
She ignored his yelling and let him hang on the dragon's side.   
“Reaper. Back to the Reformatory.”

———

They stood equidistant between Japeth and Rhian. Guards bordered their generals.  
Hester was on the other side, tied up and muzzled.  
Nobody dared attack.

Rhian focused on the weak link. “Kei, please,” he said. “You wouldn’t be so reckless if I had simply been truthful with my affections. That’s my fault. I don’t want to ever make you feel unwanted.”  
“But you did,” said Kei.  
“We can start over,” Rhian persuaded. “I’ll drop my job. Forget everyone else.”  
“Don’t go,” Sophie said, coming to terms that Kei had been correct. He was helpless, just like her when she was younger. “There’s nothing for you. Trust me.”

Kei’s eyes watered. “Didn’t I warn you, Sophie?”  
He joined Rhian’s side, and reeled him into a treacherous, passionate kiss.

It was lost. All lost. Sophie wanted to draw into a concave, blank slated and blissful like she was in her prison domain of isolation.

Then she saw the glint of a ring on his hand behind his back.  
Her wedding finger was barren. Impossible.  
Kei pulled away, only for a split-second, an inch of space between him and his prince. With his dagger he slit Rhian’s throat. A neat waterfall of blood flowed.  
In his last breath he captured Kei’s mouth once more.  
“Get away from him!” Sophie snarled. 

Like a bullet, lightning cannoned into Rhian’s chest. His body hit the wall in a resounding thump.

“How mortifyingly inadequate,” Japeth remarked. A single scim flayed off his thigh and pierced Kei in the ribs. He folded in half and fell. “You won’t find me as easy.”

His coat of scims jittered with expectation of humans to eat.  
Each of those slimy black eels pivoted to the side. Facing Hester.

A blast of clarity knocked into Sophie’s head.  
“That’s your medal-winner,” she said, treading water. “You won’t do it.”  
Japeth smirked. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Do you feel lucky?”

No, she didn’t. But she was the offering. She was the sacrifice.

Scims shot out.  
She threw herself over Hester.

Savage pain blossomed in her breast. Blood spilled and stained the floor.  
Hester wriggled out of her bonds and took Sophie gently in her embrace.  
“You weren’t supposed to save me,” she sobbed. “I wanted you alive, and free.”  
“I’m alive,” Sophie maintained her gasping in slow intervals. “I’m alive.”  
Hester gritted her teeth and let out a whistle.  
The guards discarded their helmets.  
Surrounding them was Beatrix, Reena, Anadil, Dot, Tedros, and Agatha. All of their allies in one place.

They charged Japeth; Beatrix and Reena with bayonets, Anadil riding on her rabid, 20 feet tall rats, Dot with a trident, Tedros flying with Excalibur (covered in pixie dust). Agatha on a levitation board.

Japeth scattered his scims in every direction like darts.  
Once he let go, another sheet of scims enveloped him to make a shield.  
“Coward,” Agatha rasped.  
She skated around him in cyclical circuits, her magic expertly dismantling his cover piece by piece; arms linked with Tedros, who hauled Dot along, until her full guard was in orbit. At every glimpse of sallow skin they struck.

“Quit nursing me,” Sophie entreated Hester. “Shoot that vermin down.”  
“You’d better not die on me,” she retaliated.

Hester strode forward. Her arm transformed into a demon. Immaturely it stuck out its tongue, remodeling into a broadsword as she took the hilt.

She ripped open a hole in Japeth’s brittle fortress, leaving him an incacipitated madman. Scims wilted and dried up, the harsh ice in his eyes dulling. Hester felt no pity. This was the man who’d belittled her and bullied her at every turn, the evil who couldn’t bear to let her live.

Sophie lurched to her feet, still hurting.  
“You won’t ever control us again.”  
Knots of electricity unraveled from her wrists into silky cords, digging beneath Japeth’s flesh and weaving him into a web.  
He was the paralyzed prey in his hunter’s net.

Sophie nodded. “Hester, you may have the honor.”  
“I know,” she reprised. “It’s just that Japeth could never earn the privilege of being killed by me.”

Her oppressor right where she wanted him, Hester brought down her sword, splitting him through the heart.  
He died in fear of the monsters he ruled.

in the same vein, Sophie’s time had run out.  
Hester caught her as she fainted. The blood loss had become too much.  
Agatha and the guard piling onto Reaper, Tedros carrying an injured Kei, and Hester holding Sophie close.  
They flew into the dusky evening.

“We won!” said Sophie, exhausted and crying.  
“We won.” Hester brushed the tears off her girlfriend’s cheek.  
“And now you can rest.”

———

The dawn light cast a glow over them, the glint of Hester’s metal arm blinding Sophie awake. It must have been intentional, or else that girl wouldn’t be laughing at her expense.  
“Can you stop,” she said.  
“Don’t make fun of it, come on now,” Hester goaded, blinding her again. “We’re on an equal playing field.”  
She helped Sophie up on Reaper’s wobbly saddle and poked her in the chest. It gave a heavy clang.  
“God, no,” denied Sophie. “No, that’s a ruse.”  
She scrubbed the dust off Hester’s forearm and looked. Replacing her heart was a large, clear steel diamond. Sunbeams streamed through it.  
“I’m- I’m-”  
“Like me?” Hester said. “You’ll get used to the feeling.”  
“It’s not bad,” she confessed.  
“You look beautiful with it.”  
Sophie thought she didn’t hear right. “What did you say?”  
Hester answered her with a kiss. She closed her eyes, her hands got lost in her hair, and above all they were free. Like they had always dreamed of.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get that kiss,” said Sophie.  
“I know you just want another one.”

Holding hands, the couple looked out at the sunrise.

For once in their lives, they had hope.  
And they weren’t alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly i'm happy with the way this turned out! i hope y'all are too!
> 
> I feel like I need to do a whole other thing for Model! Tedros and his pixie dust 
> 
> bruh the struggle between wanting to make Agatha a modern magical skater girl but not have a dumb levitation board...
> 
> I gave Dot a trident instead of chocolate because how tf else she gonna fight Japeth...
> 
> There's like, more crying ig, I don't know what prompts people to cry. 
> 
> Yeah, I did the memory loss trope, and what about it? I'd already foreshadowed it so kinda had to do something sjdfjsdf
> 
> Also yes, I made Sophie like Iron Man.

**Author's Note:**

> @ val, I couldn't finish the entire work in time. So... cliffhanger. I will update! I promise!


End file.
